But this is worshipful fociety, And fits the mounting fpirit, like myself: 8 For it fhall ftrew the footsteps of my rifing.- 1 Enter lady Faulconbridge and James Gurney. O me! it is my mother:--How now, good lady? Lady. Where is that flave, thy brother? where is he? That holds in chafe mine honour up and down? Phil. My brother Robert? old fir Robert's fon? Colbrand the giant, that fame mighty man? Is it fir Robert's fon, that you feek fo Lady. Sir Robert's fon! Ay, thou unreverend boy, Sir Robert's fon: Why fcorn'ft thou at fir Robert ? He is fir Robert's fon; and fo art thou. Which though &c.] The conftruction will be mended, if instead of which though, we read this though. JOHNSON. 9 But sobo comes &c.. -] Milton, in his tragedy, introduces Dalilah with fuch an interrogatory exclamation. JOHNSON. to blow a born -] He means, that a woman who travelled about like a pof, was likely to born her husband. JOHNSON. Colbrand- -] Colbrand was a Danish giant, whom Guy of Warwick difcomfited in the prefence of king Athelitan. The combat is very pompoutly defcribed by Drayton in his Polyolbion. JOHNSON. Phil. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while? Gur. Good leave 3, good Philip. 4 Phil. Philip ?-fparrow!-James, 3 Good leave, &c.] Good leave means a ready affent. So, in K. Hen. VI. P. III. act III. fc. ii: "K. Edw. Lords, give us leave; I'll try this widow's wit. "Glo. Ay, good leave have you, for you will have leave." STEEVENS. 4 Philip!-Sparrow!-James,] I think the poet wrote: Philip! fpare me, James, i. e. don't affront me with an appellation that comes from a family which I difdain. WARBURTON. The old reading is far more agreeable to the character of th fpeaker. Dr. Gray obferves, that Skelton has a poem to the m mory of Philip Sparrow; and Mr. Pope in a fhort note remark that a Sparrow is called Philip. JOHNSON. Gafcoigne has likewife a poem entitled, The Praife of Phi Sparrow; and in Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1601, is the fol lowing paffage: The birds fit chirping, chirping, &c." "Philip is treading, treading, &c." Again, in the Northern Lafs, 1633: "A bird whofe pastime made me glad, Again, in Magnificence an ancient Interlude by Skelton, published by Raftell: "With me in kepynge fuch a Phylyp Sparowe. STEEVENS. The following quotation feems to confirm Mr. Pope's explana tion. In the Widow, fee Dodf. Old Plays, vol. VI. p. 38: "Phil. I would my letter, wench, were here again, "I'd know him wifer ere I fent him one; "And travel some five year first. "Viol. So he had need, methinks, “To understand the words; methinks the words "Of a cock-Sparrow that will come at, Philip, "And cannot write nor read, poor fool; this coxcomb, "He can do both, and your name's but Philippa, "And yet to fee, if he can come when he's call'd." The Ballard therefore means: Philip! Do you take me for a sparrow, James? HAWKINS. There's toys abroad ; anon I'll tell thee more. 6 [Exit James Madam, I was not old fir Robert's fon; Sir Robert never holp to make this leg. Lady. Haft thou confpired with thy brother too, That for thine own gain fhould'ft defend mine ho nour? What means this fcorn, thou moft untoward knave? Phil. Knight, knight, good mother, Bafilifco 7 like: What! s There's toys abroad; &c.] i. e. rumours, idle reports. So, in B. Jonfon's Sejanus : "Toys, mere toys, "What wifdom's in the streets." So, in a poftfcript to a letter from the countefs of Effex to Dr. Forman, in relation to the trial of Anne Turner for the murder of fir Tho. Overbury: " they may tell my. father and mother, and fill their ears full of toys. State Trials, vol. I. p. 322. 6 might have eat his part in me Upon Good-Friday, and ne'er broke bis faft:] 66 STEEVENS. This thought occurs in Heywood's Dialogues upon Proverbs, 1562; he may his fridaie eate, parte on good "And faft never the wurs, for ought he fhall geare." STEEVENS. 7 Knight, knight, good mother,Bafilifco like:] Thus mut this paffage be pointed; and, to come at the humour of it, I must elear up an old circumftance of ftage-history. Faulconbridge's words here carry a concealed piece of fatire on a stupid drama of that age, printed in 1599, and called Soliman and Perfeda. In this piece there is the character of a bragging cowardly knight,. called Bafilifco. His pretenfion to valour is fo blown, and feen through, that Pifton, a buffoon-fervant in the play, jumps upon his back, and will not difengage him, till he makes Bafilifco fwear upon What! I am dub'd; I have it on my fhoulder. Then, good my mother, let me know my father; Some proper man, I hope; Who was it, mother? Lady. Haft thou deny'd thyfelf a Faulconbridge? Phil. As faithfully as I deny the devil. Lady. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father; By long and vehement fuit I was feduc'd To make room for him in my husband's bed :- Which was fo ftrongly urg'd, paft my defence. upon his dudgeon dagger to the contents, and in the terms he dic tates to him: as, for inftance: "Baf. O, I fwear, I swear. "Pif. By the contents of this blade. Baf. By the contents of this blade. "Pift. I, the aforefaid Bafilifco. "Baf. I, the aforefaid Bafilisco, knight, good fellow, knight, knight " Pift. Knave, good fellow, knave, knave." So that it is clear, our poet is fneering at this play; and makes Philip, when his mother calls him knave, throw off that reproach by humouroufly laying claim to his new dignity of knighthood; as Bafilifco arrogantly infifts on his title of knight in the paffage above quoted. The old play is an execrable bad one; and, I fuppofe, was fufficiently exploded in the representation: which might make this circumstance fo well known, as to become the butt for a stagefarcafm. THEOBALD. The character of Bafilifco is mentioned in Nafh's Have with you to Saffron Walden, &c. printed in 1596. STEEVENS. 8 Some fins] There are fins, that whatever be determined of them above, are not much cenfured on earth. JOHNSON. Needs muft you lay your heart at his difpofe, And they fhall fay, when Richard me begot, [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I. Before the walls of Angiers in France. Enter Philip king of France, Lewis the dauphin, the archduke of Auftria, Conftance, and Arthur. Lewis. Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.Arthur, that great fore-runner of thy blood, ? Needs muft you lay your heart at his difpofe, &c. The awless lion could not wage the fight, &c.] Shakespeare here alludes to the old metrical romance of Richard Cœur de lion, wherein this once celebrated monarch is related to have acquired his distinguishing appellation, by having plucked out a lion's heart to whofe fury he was expofed by the duke o Auftria, for having flain his fon with a blow of his fift. From this ancient romance the story has crept into fome of our old chronicles but the original paffage may be feen at large in the intro duction to the third vol, of Reliques of ancient English Poetry. PERCY. Richard, |